He studied Steven’s signature in the passport for a minute, and then dashed it off on the top sheet.
“No.” He shook his head, and tried again. It was like Steven’s walk, cocky and confident, the “T” was crossed with a flourishing sword stroke of the pen.
In sixty seconds he had it perfected.
“With that wig on your head you could walk into my bank any day and sign for the whole damned bundle,” Steven muttered uneasily. “Then go home and climb into bed with Pat.”
“Now, there is an idea.” Peter looked thoughtful.
“Don’t joke about it,” Steven pleaded.
“Who’s joking?” Peter went through the credit cards, club membership cards, driver’s licence and all the other clutter of civilized existence.
Steven’s mastery of his brother’s signature was not nearly as effective, but after twenty minutes” practice was just adequate for hotel registration purposes.
“Here is the address of a hotel on the left bank. Magnificent restaurant, and the management are very understanding if you should want to invite a young lady up to your room for a drink.”
“Perish the thought.” Steven looked smug at the prospect.
“It should only be for a few days, Steven. Just keep very low.
Pay cash for everything. Keep clear of the George V or the Meurice, Le
Doyen and Maxim’s all the places where they know you.” They went carefully over the last details of the exchange of identity, while
Steven shaved off the mustache and anointed the bare patch tenderly with Eau de Sauvage.
“You’d better move now,” Peter told him at last. “Wear this—” It was Peters buff trenchcoat that would cover his blazer. And let’s change ties.” Steven was ready, and he stood rather awkwardly by the door, in the tightly fitting trenchcoat.
“Steven, can I ask you a question?” Peter did not know why he had to know now, it had been buried so deeply for so long and yet at this moment it was deadly important to know.
“Of course, old boy.” Steven seemed to welcome the postponement of the moment of parting.
“Sandhurst.” Peter tried to keep the embarrassment out of his voice. “I never asked you before but you didn’t do it, did you,
Steven?” Steven met his eyes calmly, steadily. “No, Peter. I did not do it. My word on it.” Peter took his brother’s proffered right hand and squeezed it hard. It was ridiculous to feel so relieved.
“I’m glad, Steven.”
“Take care of yourself, old boy.”
“I will,”
Peter nodded. “But if anything happens,” Peter” hesitated, ” Melissa-Jane—2
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” Why do Englishmen have such difficulty talking to each other, Peter wondered, let alone communicating affection and gratitude?
“Well, I’ll be getting along then,” said Steven.
“Take a guard on your middle stump, and don’t be caught in the slips,” Peter cautioned him with the old inanity.
“Count on it,” said Steven, and went out into the passage, closing the door behind him firmly, leaving his brother to think about
Jerusalem.
the name had changed from Lad to BenGurion otherwise the
Arrivals Hall was as Peter remembered it. One of the few airports on the globe which has sufficient luggage trolleys, so that the passengers do not have to fight for possession.
In the Arrivals Hall there was a young Israeli driver with the name:
Sir Steven Stride printed in white chalk on a schoolboy’s black slate.
The driver wore a navy-blue cap with a black patent leather peak.
It was his only item of uniform, otherwise he was dressed in sandals and a white cotton shirt. His English had the usual strong American turn to it, and his attitude was casual and friendly he might be driving the limousine today, but tomorrow he could be at the controls of a Centurion tank, and he was as good a man as his passenger any day.
“Shalom, Shalom,” he greeted Peter. “Is that all your luggage?”
“Yes.” TeseMer. Let’s go.” He did not offer to push Peter’s trolley,
but chatted amicably as he led him out to the limousine.
It was a stretched-out 240 D Mercedes Benz almost brand new,
lovingly polished but somebody had painted a pair of squinting eyes on each side of the chrome three pointed star on the boot of the vehicle.
They had hardly pulled out through the airport gates when one of the characteristic aromas of Israel filled the cab of the Mercedes the smell of orange blossom from the citrus orchards that lined each side of the road.
For some reason the smell made Peter feel uneasy, a sensation of having missed something, of having neglected some vital aspect. He tried to think it all out again, from the beginning, but the driver kept up a running commentary as they pulled up the new double highway,
over the hills through the pine forests towards Jerusalem, and the voice distracted him.
Peter wished he had kept the list that he had drawn up in the hotel room at Orly instead of destroying it. He tried to reconstruct it in his mind.
There were a dozen items on the plus side. The third was: Magda told me about Cactus Flower. Would she have done so if she was Caliph?
And then directly opposite, in the’minus’column: If Magda is
Caliph, then “Cactus Flower” does not exist.
It was an invention for some undisclosed reason.
This was the item that pricked him like a burr in a woollen sock.
He kept coming back to it; there was a link missing from the logic of it and he tried to tease it loose. It was there just below the surface of his mind, and he knew instinctively that if he missed it the consequences would be dire.
The driver kept chatting, turning to glance back at him every few minutes with a cheerful demand for recognition.
“That’s right, isn’t it?” Peter grunted. The man was irritating him the missing item was there, just beginning to surface. He could see the shape of it. Why had the smell of orange blossom worried him?
The smell of flowers? Cactus flower? There was something there,
something missing from the list.
If Magda is not Caliph then-Was that it? He was not certain. ” Will that be all right, then?” The driver was insisting again.
“I’m sorry what was that?”
“I said, I had to drop a parcel off at my mother-in-law,” the driver explained again. “It’s from my wife.”
“Can’t you do that on your way back?”
“I’m not going back tonight-” The driver grinned winningly over his shoulder.
right on our way. It won’t take five minutes. I promised my wife
I’d get it to her mother today.”
“Oh, very well then,” Peter snapped.
There was something about the man he did not like, and he had lost track of the item that had been worrying him.
He felt as though he was in a chess game with a vastly superior opponent, and he had overlooked a castle on an open file, or a knight in a position to fork simultaneous check on his king and queen.
“We turn off here,” the driver explained, and swung off into a section of new apartment blocks, all of them built of the custard-yellow Jerusalem stone, row upon row Of them, Israel’s desperate attempt to house its new citizens. At this time of evening the streets were deserted, as families gathered for the evening meal.
The driver jinked through the maze of identical-seeming streets with garrulous confidence and then braked and parked in front of one of the square, boxlike, yellow buildings.
